With new technologies revolutionizing data collection, wildlife researchers are becoming increasingly able to collect data at much higher volumes than ever before. Now we are facing the challenges of putting this information to use, bringing the science of big data into the conservation arena. With the help of machine learning tools, this area holds immense potential for conservation practices. The applications range from online trafficking alerts to species-specific early warning systems to efficient movement and biodiversity monitoring and beyond.
However, the process of building effective machine learning tools depends upon large amounts of standardized training data, and conservationists currently lack an established system for standardization. How to best develop such a system and incentivize data sharing are questions at the forefront of this work. There are currently multiple AI-based conservation initiatives, including Wildlife Insights and WildBook, that are pioneering applications on this front.
This group is the perfect place to ask all your AI-related questions, no matter your skill level or previous familiarity! You'll find resources, meet other members with similar questions and experts who can answer them, and engage in exciting collaborative opportunities together.
Just getting started with AI in conservation? Check out our introduction tutorial, How Do I Train My First Machine Learning Model? with Daniel Situnayake, and our Virtual Meetup on Big Data. If you're coming from the more technical side of AI/ML, Sara Beery runs an AI for Conservation slack channel that might be of interest. Message her for an invite.
Header Image: Dr Claire Burke / @CBurkeSci
Explore the Basics: AI
Understanding the possibilities for incorporating new technology into your work can feel overwhelming. With so many tools available, so many resources to keep up with, and so many innovative projects happening around the world and in our community, it's easy to lose sight of how and why these new technologies matter, and how they can be practically applied to your projects.
Machine learning has huge potential in conservation tech, and its applications are growing every day! But the tradeoff of that potential is a big learning curve - or so it seems to those starting out with this powerful tool!
To help you explore the potential of AI (and prepare for some of our upcoming AI-themed events!), we've compiled simple, key resources, conversations, and videos to highlight the possibilities:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Everything I know about Machine Learning and Camera Traps, Dan Morris | Resource library, camera traps, machine learning
- Using Computer Vision to Protect Endangered Species, Kasim Rafiq | Machine learning, data analysis, big cats
- Resource: WildID | WildID
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- I made an open-source tool to help you sort camera trap images | Petar Gyurov, Camera Traps
- Batch / Automated Cloud Processing | Chris Nicolas, Acoustic Monitoring
- Looking for help with camera trapping for Jaguars: Software for species ID and database building | Carmina Gutierrez, AI for Conservation
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- How do I get started using machine learning for my camera traps? | Sara Beery, Tech Tutors
- How do I train my first machine learning model? | Daniel Situnayake, Tech Tutors
- Big Data in Conservation | Dave Thau, Dan Morris, Sarah Davidson, Virtual Meetups
Want to know more about AI, or have your specific machine learning questions answered by experts in the WILDLABS community? Make sure you join the conversation in our AI for Conservation group!
April 2024
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Stephanie O'Donnell
October 2024
June 2023
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Hirari Sasaki
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Stephanie O'Donnell
May 2023
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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| I'm also here for this. This is my first comment... I've been lurking for a while.I have 20 years of professional knowledge in design, with the bulk of that being software design... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 3 months ago | |
| Hi folks! Happy 2024 and thanks in advance for your patience in case I over-used tags. If you’re using any form of natural language... |
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AI for Conservation, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Early Career, East Africa Community, Emerging Tech, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime, Women in Conservation Tech Programme (WiCT) | 3 months 1 week ago | |
| BTW. I found out that the Jetson Orin NX 16GB module is drawing around 20W when running continuous inference, processing streams from 6x cameras at 6 fps.I'll try and find out... |
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AI for Conservation | 3 months 3 weeks ago | |
| If you are considering an external microphone and a towed system, then you would also be in a position to consider a raspberry pi with an external microphone with sbts-aru.... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 3 months 4 weeks ago | |
| @dmorris joined Variety Hour to give us 'a bunch of lightning talks inside a lightning talk'. Check out the recording to get a whirlwind... |
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AI for Conservation, Drones, Remote Sensing & GIS | 4 months ago | |
| Also, take a look at TrapTagger. It has integration with WildMe. |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps | 4 months ago | |
| Hello Sam,What would you say would be the estimate cost was for the first version Instant Detect 1.0 ? That might help my research ? |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors | 5 months ago | |
| We are writing a methodology to measure Biodiversity density in habitats.Examining lots of different options but very keen to hear from... |
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AI for Conservation | 5 months 1 week ago | |
| Hi @GermanFore ,I work with the BearID Project on individual identification of brown bears from faces. More recently we worked on face detection across all bear species and ran... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
| Hey Wildlabbers! Is anyone planning to go to the Academic Data Science Alliance (ADSA) annual meeting next week in San Antonio? I'll be... |
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AI for Conservation, Community Base | 6 months ago | |
| This is super cool! Me and @Hubertszcz and @briannajohns and several others are all working towards some big biodiversity monitoring projects for a large conservation project here... |
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AI for Conservation, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Camera Traps | 6 months 3 weeks ago | |
| Hello! If you were interested in the DSAIL Tech4Wildlife Workshop last week exploring how AI can be used to aid conservation efforts, you... |
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AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 6 months 3 weeks ago |
Identify animal from Image
2 August 2022 1:37am
2 August 2022 10:24am
Have you considered creating a Kaggle competition? If you already have lots of images, and some that have been labelled, then this could be a good way to get people working on a solution
CERES TAG
22 July 2022 3:36am
Earth Species Project - Senior AI Research Scientist
15 July 2022 6:40pm
The Foes and Floes of Labelling Aerial Pictures Manually
Whale Seeker
13 July 2022 12:43am
PyTorch Developer/Data Scientist at Pl@ntNet
7 July 2022 5:27pm
Hello there
1 July 2022 5:00pm
Intro webinar - The Biodiversity Digital Twin: a new solution to support protection & restoration of ecosystems
30 June 2022 1:22am
MegaDetector v5 release
20 June 2022 9:06pm
29 June 2022 11:07am
Great news Dan! We will be giving the model a go on some of our new eradication projects soon
New Conservation Tech Directory update
27 June 2022 4:45pm
Live Q&A on AI models to process Camera Trap Imagery: All about WildID
21 June 2022 6:49am
23 June 2022 11:35am
Nothing too much more to share about WildID - I think you've had an earful already! But just to say that we really do enjoy working with our users, so don't be shy to get in touch for any questions, or think you would be bothering us if you need support. We're excited to bring more projects on board and extend our training sets to new locations, camera types and species.
For those in regions outside Africa, we are considering releasing a version of WildID that uses MegaDetector from Microsoft AI - so it will classify your images into empties, and then human, vehicle and animal (just those three classes). You would then be able to define your own species list, and edit the animal pictures to the correct species. Still a fair amount of work for you to edit, but you are probably doing the work already, and at least you would have an easy interface in which to do it, and particularly empties excluded already for you. Get in touch with us if this would be of use to you.
23 June 2022 11:43am
Thank you so much Kate for the excellent answers, explanations, insights and pointers; This was nothing short of Amazing!
Thank you all for joining us in this discussion; I hope this has been helpful and you now have a solution for processing your 1 million + camera trap imagery. If you have any questions for Kate, please feel free to drop them in this discussion thread- she is more than happy to answer. If you’d like to reach out to Kate directly, you can Direct message her here or send her an email at: [email protected]
Thank you!
23 June 2022 11:45am
Thank you so much Netty, I really enjoyed it.
Good luck to you all with your work.
Keep well!
Live Q&A session on AI models for Processing Camera Trap Imagery:A highlight of WildID.
22 June 2022 1:42pm
Bird Acoustic Solution
9 June 2022 11:31pm
11 June 2022 1:16pm
There are a bunch of different options for detecting calls in audio data, from proper statistical platforms such as R/Python, to bespoke software such as Arbimon, Kaleidoscope & Raven. Edge Impulse also an online ML model-building interface, but this is more focused on then deploying the models onto devices for edge computing. Arbimon has template matching features that are a good way to start finding detections to build a training dataset, I have used it for this in the past. Arbimon is online & free. Kaleidoscope has a clustering function which is again a good first step to start picking out the low-hanging fruit of detections so to speak. It's a desktop app, but this is not free ($400/yr). Raven also has some automated features - template & band-limited entropy detectors. It's also a desktop app and not free ($100-$800 depending on 1-year or permanent license and whether non-profit or not; not sure where a government agency would fit into that).
There is always the ubiquitous split between biologists who traditionally are taught to use R and tech/computer folks who are taught to use Python, but for ML, Python's ecosystem is really well set up. Not sure what the level of programming you/your dept has, but there are a TON of free resources online for learning it if you were interested.
Relevant Python bioacoustics packages potentially of use - Acoustic_Indices, scikit-maad, Ketos, OpenSoundscape (as well as the obvious ML ones such as TensorFlow)
Some R packages as well - soundecology, bioacoustics, monitoR, warbleR, gibbonR
@tessa_rhinehart has created a fabulous list of bioacoustics software that you can find here: https://github.com/rhine3/bioacoustics-software.
You can also turn to articles that have already done similar things and reach out to the authors to discuss their methods. I've got a (totally un-exhaustive) list of papers on passive acoustic monitoring, with a section on 'analyses' that you might find useful to start with; I can email it to you if you'd like. Working on a PAM training materials page on my website that it will be available at shortly as well (will post the link to Wildlabs when it's live!).
Hope this is helpful!
16 June 2022 9:27am
Hi,
Look at this publication (below) and download the BirdNet app. The computer code is provided to train ML algorithm that will allow you to tailor the model with your own data.
Thanks, Mrigesh
20 June 2022 1:00am
Thank you @carlybatist , @Freaklabs and @MK . The inputs are very useful and I am progressing on my project based on that. Appreciate a lot.
Cofounder needed
9 June 2022 4:23pm
17 June 2022 1:14pm
What about developing a drone conservation training course for field conservation staff teaching specific skills for specific research needs.
17 June 2022 6:54pm
How exciting @Joyeeta ! I'd love to learn more about the companies and projects you worked on, can you share more info about them?
I once chatted to an entrepreneurial advisor with a couple of my conservation tech ideas, and he said my ideas are good/impactful but don't make for a product worth millions of $$$ of turnover per year that would interest investors. So I am very curious about how you got your conservation tech businesses off the ground!
18 June 2022 8:33pm
Some folks doing work in this space - Wildlife Drones, Conservation Drones, UAV Wild, AfricanDrones, Oceans Unmanned, Geonadir.
Silverstrand Capital Biodiversity Accelerator+
17 June 2022 11:03am
Multiple Roles with Rainforest Connection
Rainforest Connection
16 June 2022 9:15am
Join Seeed’s “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Planet 2022” on Hackster to Get 100 Free Hardware and to Win $14,000+ in Prizes!!
14 June 2022 11:04am
Join Seeed’s “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Planet 2022” on Hackster to Get 100 Free Hardware and to Win $14,000+ in Prizes!!!
14 June 2022 9:14am
Switch to Conservation IT
10 June 2022 1:47am
11 June 2022 1:39pm
Do you have any particular areas of interest within using AI for conservation tech? e.g., camera trapping, tracking/telemetry, passive acoustic monitoring, eDNA, etc.
You might also check out the Conservation Tech Directory to see what other kinds of companies, organizations, etc. are involved in those different spaces and which are best aligned with what would want to do.
11 June 2022 3:10pm
Thanks Carly. No special areas of interest for now although that will happen over time. Thanks so much for your reply. I will check the Conservation Tech directory out.
Soumya
2 postdoc positions: AI for Biodiversity Monitoring
11 June 2022 2:40pm
TAI4ES: Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Science, 2022 summer school
4 June 2022 11:31am
Postdoc: computer vision for insect monitoring
4 June 2022 11:12am
3 open positions at Impact Observatory
4 June 2022 10:55am
Science Director, Vulcan
Vulcan
4 June 2022 10:50am
New microprocessor for low power AI camera & audio applications from Microchip
3 June 2022 8:36pm
Global Forest Watch Small Grants Fund
1 June 2022 4:19pm
Post-doc in Multi-Sensor Fusion for Animal Biomechanics
1 June 2022 9:56am
2 August 2022 2:54am
Hi Jitendra.
If they are still images, many people are using Megadetector to analyze their images. I'm not sure how it will do in species classification, but it can tell you if there are images of interest in the shots. Others here can probably give you more detailed instructions on how to use it to batch process camera trap images.